Trams, Buses, and Rails recounts the unique and little-known 130-year history of Bangkok's transportation system, from the first horse-powered tramway in 1888 to the mass transit urban railway of the twenty-first century. Using government archives and annual reports, the author deftly pieces together long-buried records and statistics to reconstruct the transportation policies of each successive metropolitan and national administration. He highlights the politicization and regulation of Bangkok's transport systems over the decades, and uncovers a series of setbacks, reversals, duplications, revisions, and cancellations that help to explain Bangkok's continuing transportation woes.

A series of maps and tables elucidate the development of transportation routes and the rise and fall of the city's trams, railways, and bus lines.